


Until The End of Everything

by appleyogurt



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mecha, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appleyogurt/pseuds/appleyogurt
Summary: The sleepy fishing town of Opus was all Patroclus knew until one faithful day everything he knew or would ever know was destroyed by the reckoning of forgotten gods.Or, in an alternate future where mankind must fight to survive against godly monsters, two souls still manage to hold onto each other despite everything.
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Until The End of Everything

When Patroclus had been young, the world beyond his small town of Opus had seemed impossibly large. He could not imagine anything else more terrifying than waking up to the unknown, with streets that were not paved with old world cobblestone and not lined with grey stone walls, weathered by the harsh sea salt. 

He feared other things as well. Like the loud banging of the front door, opening and closing once in the morning and once at night. He feared the heavy workman footsteps that created grooves in the dry, cracked stairs of his house. And he feared the crashing and banging that would follow in the next room besides him when the owner of those footsteps inevitably collided with his mother. It was a repeating chemical reaction; his acidic father pouring over his mother and allowing his anger to bubble over each other and flooding the house in the process.

By the time Patroclus was six, he realized he had no place to call home. His household did not align with the happy homes of his favorite storybooks and he would often peel off the greying wallpaper in his small bedroom, hoping to discover a new house underneath. Maybe underneath the wallpaper was something better; a plaster that wouldn't let his mother's lucidness leak out as quick. 

Patroclus would then learn to find home in other people. His first home was his mother. She had the same deep chestnut complexion of his and curly hair that bounced off her shoulders. His father had straight hair, leaving Patroclus with a mixture of unruly waves and curls that neither parent were quite sure how to manage. But his favorite part of his mother was her eyes. When she was awake, truly awake, they gleamed and went wide with fascination whenever Patroclus had the chance to tell her his day. Her eyes reflected his and this is where he found his home. When his father left the house, Patroclus would often climb into his mother's lap as she sat in her rocking chair by the master bedroom window. He loved her, and he knew she loved him. But sometimes his mother would go somewhere else, somewhere that Patroclus could not follow and all he was left with was her absent stare and the white lace of her night dress clutched between his small hands.

She died looking out that window, rocking back and forth until she wasn't.

By the time Patroclus was ten, his second home was around the finger of a boy. Clysonymus was cruel and lovely all the same. He would order Patroclus around and force him to do all the unpleasantries that Clysonymus would find amusing on no particular day. Patroclus was small, smaller than other boys his age and was often picked on at school. When Clysonymus discovered Patroclus, he decided to make him his pet and soon the other boys stopped torturing poor Patroclus and left the job to Clysonymus. When Clysonymus was done with whatever cruelty he had forced on Patroclus, he would always hold him close and tell him cruel lovely things along the lines of,  _ "be grateful I don't do worse things to you."  _

_ "I saved you from those other boys. While they would make you eat shit, I simply order you to roll in it."  _

And Patroclus believed him. He told himself he was grateful, that he was lucky for this to be the extent of his discipline. His father would often go on and on about needing to "set him right" at the dinner table and here lovely Clysonymus was doing the job for him. That's what Patroclus would tell himself or, he thought, he wouldn't be able to bear it. 

The last day Patroclus was able to bear it was also the last day he would ever see lovely and awful Clysonymus, grey tinted Opus and his peeling wallpaper. It started off like any other.

The two boys had been walking along the coastline when Patroclus stumbled upon a pair of abandoned dice. He had noticed it before Clysonymus and began to put it in his pocket when a clammy hand grabbed his wrist.

"Give me those dice," Clysonymus had sneered.

Patroclus, finding unknown confidence, said back, "But I found them first." 

"Well they're mine anyway. Anything you have is mine, understand? You own nothing! Nothing!" 

Patroclus felt it in his stomach first, the anger that was now rising up and entering his circulatory system. It was coursing through his body and threatening to close off his throat. He could barely breathe and began to hyperventilate. He had to do something, anything to expel the feeling. And so he did what he knew and with two heavy footsteps forward, he allowed his anger to bubble over and pushed Clysonymus back as far as he could. 

He knew there was a drop down to the beach where they had been walking. But it had to have been less than a foot or two down and Patroclus knew when he pushed him that Clysonymus would be fine. What he hadn't anticipated was the crunch. In his shock, Clysonymus fell down completely wrong and his right ankle folded completely under him. Patroclus ran over to the edge and saw Clysonymus crying and nursing his very obviously broken leg. 

"I'll get help!" And with that he ran off to find any adult nearby. 

By the time he made it into town, the streets were completely empty.

And then he heard the sirens. 

Piercing mechanical screeches flooded the streets and Patroclus looked around frantically for any clue as to what might've been happening. A flood? Hurricane or tropical storm? All of those things had different siren tunes. Patroclus began to run towards the only hill nearby to get a better look at things and that's when he saw it. 

A massive creature swayed in the distance. It was emerging from the ocean and Patroclus could see the water roll off the creatures back like droplets even though he knew they were more like waterfalls. It was huge, bigger than any building he had seen before. It was also fleshy, covered in scales that shone in endless prismatic color. It was oddly beautiful and demanded his attention and the feeling of humility ran through him. And then in a flash, the creature had jumped, landing onto the beach. The ground shook worse than any earthquake and Patroclus fell down and hit his head against the ground. He sat up trying to see everything that was happening but his vision had black spots and his body refused to move. He could only lay down on his side and watch the monster's legs move away from the beach and toward the town when he came to a horrifying realization. 

Clysonymus is on the beach.

Using all his willpower, he stood up just a little and witnessed the extent of the devastation. The monster had completely destroyed the beach with his landing. It was a crater beyond recognition and Patroclus gulped down the massive ball forming in his throat. He thought to himself, "I killed him. I killed him, I left him on the beach and killed him," but began to see the black spots return and cover the landscape and mercifully, he fainted. 

───────────────────────────────

Chiron wasn't sure why he was even put on rescue duty. The extent of the damage he had witnessed on the helicopter ride to the small fishing town was of the likes of which he had never seen before. 

What was once perhaps a quaint fishing town was now in utter ruin. There was absolutely no way anyone had survived that monster's rampage. Hundreds of recruits scoured over crumbled buildings and the pulverized remains of a world that would remain a distant memory from then on. Occasionally Chiron would encounter a hopeful limb sticking out only to discover the carnage attached to it. 

He needed a break. Looking around him, he discovered a grassy hill just a bit removed from the town. Just a few minutes walk from the edge of the ruins. There was a large tree at the top of the hill and Chiron walked towards it, eager to find shade and rest. 

What he found instead was a young boy unconscious at the top. He was sleeping with a pained expression on his face and Chiron could see a purple bruise blooming across the side of his face. Quickly, he ran and checked the boy's vitals. A concussion, nothing more. He couldn't believe it, this boy had somehow managed to survive. None of the residents had known this creature was coming from what he had been told before the rescue mission. They had been told to stay inside once the coast guard had noticed strange activity but there wasn't any way for them to be prepared. After all, even he wasn't quite sure what this  _ thing _ was and as he held this boy close to him, he felt a profound sadness. He was so small and his youth remained in the fullness of his cheeks still. How could Chiron explain to him that he had lost everything, to something so unfathomable? That he would be the only human in the world to have gone through what he just did? What stunned him next was the fact he even thought he would take the responsibility to tell him this. 

With a trembling hand, Chiron raised his radio up to his mouth.

"I found one. We're at the top of the hill near town. Bring a stretcher" 

The next few days all but passed in a blur. He could remember the helicopter ride, the hospital, the news but most of all what he could remember was the absent stare from the boy when Chiron was finally able to tell him everything.

He was somewhere Chiron could not follow and it would take weeks for Patroclus to come back to him.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Heavy first chapter huh? Next update will be up by next Saturday. Thank you for reading!


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